This thesis examines the behaviour of sentential complements in Mohawk within the framework of Government and Binding Theory. Past proposals concerning the syntactic structure of sentential complements in Romance languages (and English) are explored in Mohawk. It is claimed that Mohawk only has full CP complements and no distinct types of embedded clauses (such as a subjunctive or infinitival). This is due to a morphological requirement (specified by the Minimal Word Constraint) on Mohawk verbs which dictates the need for obligatory agreement morphology. Tense/aspect co-occurrence restrictions are given to show what type of CP complements a verb can take. The evidence indicates that selection of complements is due to semantic and not syntactic reasons.

Typical experiments investigating the accessibility and/or role of principles of Universal Grammar (UG) in adult second language acquisition (SLA) use a written grammaticality judgment (GJ) task to infer knowledge of principles of UG. The present investigation examined whether subjects would judge sentences differently in the aural modality than the visual. It was hypothesized that subjects in the aural condition would be less accurate and slower at judging sentences violating the subjacency principle than subjects in the visual condition. Four language groups were tested: ESL (English second-language) FSL (French second-language), L1.E (English first language) and L1.F (French first language). Subjects were assigned to either an aural or a visual condition; the same sentences were presented via computer. The target sentences presented to the subjects were declarative sentences involving embedded questions, as well as ungrammatical wh-questions which violated subjacency. The presentation times for all sentences were matched across conditions. Accuracy and reaction time to grammaticality judgment were measured. The hypothesis that subjects would be slower and less accurate in the aural condition than the visual one was supported. Furthermore, subjects were less accurate and slower to judge violations of subjacency than other sentences, in both modalities. The detrimental effects of the auditory task on judgments was most pronounced for the L2 learners. These results are discussed in the context of the informativeness and validity of outcomes derived from GJ tasks, and the ways in which they are presented.

This study examines the forms and meanings of tensed and non-tensed clauses in English, and proposes an analysis of them that is 'Reichenbachian' in spirit and syntactic in orientation. The study considers tensed verb forms in simple sentences, focussing on 'present', 'future', and 'perfect' forms and their interaction with adverbials of temporal location; and those in complement, relative, and temporal clause constructions. It also considers three types of non-tensed verb forms--infinitives, gerunds, and 'bare infinitives'--in verb complements. / The study demonstrates that the interpretation of tensed and non-tensed forms can be described in terms of Reichenbach's (1947) temporal schemata, which express relations between 'S' ('speech time'), 'R' ('reference time'), and 'E' ('situation time'). However, its central claim is that the tensed forms themselves are 'temporally underspecified', encoding relations between 'S' and 'R', and leaving the relation between 'R' and 'E' and the location and duration of both of these intervals to be determined by lexical properties of the verb and its arguments, temporal adverbials, and context. Non-tensed verbs forms have a similar syntactic representation, differing primarily in not fully encoding a relation between 'S' and 'R'. This claim is cashed out in terms of two devices: a feature system that expresses tenses as particular values of the feature matrix (Anterior, Posterior); and a device of 'tense linking', based on Higginbotham's (e.g. 1983) proposal for binding theory, which associates verbs with temporal adverbials or tensed Infl, and one (tensed or non-tensed) Infl with a higher one.

In comparison with the fields of phonology, syntax, and semantics, there is a distinct lack of a comprehensive and critical study of morphological theory, particularly modern trends in this sub-branch of linguistic theory. There is also a marked lack of interest in the underlying methodological and epistemological foundations of morphological theory, though this situation also holds for the three other areas of core-linguistics mentioned above. The present thesis has a modest aim: it is to give a critical and fairly comprehensive study of five modern morphological approaches, with particular reference, whenever possible, to their underlying methodological and epistemological principles. This thesis contains six chapters and a short Introduction. The Introduction deals with the place and state of morphological studies in modern linguistic theory. It also sets out the 'reasons' behind the restriction of the scope of the thesis to the following five approaches: (1) stratificational grammar, (2) transformational generative grammar, (3) word and paradigm I (Robins), (4) word and paradigm II (Matthews), and (5) axiomatic functionalism. A brief explanation of the format of the approach adopted in studying these different trends is also given here. [Only transcribed in part due to abstract length].

No description available.

A basic principle of object individuation--that predicables (or adjectival, verbal, or prepositional expressions) do not individuate--gives rise to a competence theory related to their interpretation. It is that we interpret predicables as sub-kinds of the kinds that type them. Evidence of children's competence in this matter is reviewed. Two experiments are presented, exploring the sensitivity of 20 children, aged 2;11 to 3;11 (mean 3;6), to changes in adjective interpretation across unrelated and related kinds. For instance, children were tested on their understanding that a nonsense adjective picked out sub-kinds of toy bears and balls on the basis of unrelated attributes. They were also tested on their understanding that the opposites "big" and "little" could describe the same individual object when typed by basic level and superordinate level kinds (e.g. that a little bat could be a big toy). Children's responses were near perfect, indicating that the basic logical framework for predicable interpretation used by adults is in place by age three.

No description available.

In this thesis I investigate the crucial role played by government in phonology in explaining various processes such as epenthesis, vowel deletion, vowel harmony, consonant assimilation, as well as the syllabification of skeletal points along with their segments into constituents, and the organization of these constituents in the word. It is argued that all these phonological processes are determined by governing relations units contract with each other. / Given that government applies in phonology defining the constraints under which it operates is an integral part of such a research program. The aim of this thesis then, is to analyze different phonological processes in terms of government and to determine what the relevant constraints are. The processes that are considered involve governing relations between nuclei that are adjacent at the level of nuclear projection. I show that in considering branching constituents as governing domains, government within such domains is subject to a special constraint, viz. the Minimality Condition that has been proposed by Chomsky (1986). In addition I demonstrate that only the immediate projection of a given head counts as a barrier to government from the outside. / Another proposal of this thesis concerns the treatment of the alternations between schwa and zero in French in terms of a relation of proper government. From such a perspective, I show that an empty nucleus is realized as zero when it is properly governed by a following nucleus. Proper government is a stronger case of government and is subject to certain additional conditions. Among them are the following: the proper governor must have phonetic content and subject to parametric variation, it can only properly govern one empty governee.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1988. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [245]-255.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 2003? / Bibliography: p. 249-261.